New town, new enthusiasm for blogging… so let’s try bringing back the good old monthly recap!
Previously I put pressure on myself to make sure my monthly recap was the first blog of the month, so let’s scrap that idea and just post it whenever it fits into my life.
And without further ado, let’s get underway!
What happened in September
Of course, the big thing was moving to Leamington Spa!
Honestly, this move has been dominating my life for several months – it’s been a somewhat drawn out experience, as we’ve known for a while that we would likely be moving, but haven’t been able to tell anyone! And we spent a while looking for a house, but couldn’t take any of them as we didn’t have a signed contract for Tim’s new job!
Luckily, it has all come together in the end! Tim is loving his new job, and my job is remote so I can keep working in my new role (with a promotion to Senior Marketing Exec, no less). And we now have a HOUSE! With a GARDEN!
The second big thing to happen in September was our first wedding anniversary. Simultaneously, we can’t believe it’s been a whole year, and also it feels like we’ve been married for far longer than a year. We had a lovely weekend. On Friday, we ate at my first ever Michelin starred restaurant, The Cross at Kenilworth.
And on Sunday, anniversary day itself we had pancakes, an escape room, homemade pizza and more pancakes – perfect!
Our anniversary weekend also marked our one year countdown to “the big do”. We pushed our full wedding booking on to September 2022 – everything including the venue, music, photographer and hotel. Since we were only 7 weeks out when we postponed, we won’t need to think about this for a while yet, but it’s exciting to be counting down again.
And in my final bit of non-gamesy news, Tim managed to make it on the driving day I bought him for Christmas last year. I’ve said that when I learn to drive, maybe I’ll give it a go…
Megagames
Although I didn’t attend any megagames in September, the scene is really starting to amp up again, and last month I booked onto three for later in the year:
By Other Means, by Ed Silverstone and Reading Megagames
My first megagame in about 18 months is at my new local megagame group. By Other Means is “a megagame of diplomacy and conflict in a space opera setting”. Unlike many other games, it is entirely diplomacy focused, with little to no combat element – aka, right up my street! I’ve already completed the casting questionnaire, and as this is only a few weeks off, I’m excited to see what role I get…
Washington Conference, by Dave Boundy and Megagame Makers
Speaking of megagames that are focused solely on diplomacy, enter the original council game! Set during the conference in Washington in 1921, players take on roles of senior diplomats trying to establish a long-lasting peace in the wake of World War One. In short, it’s a lot of arguing about submarines. And, if you paid attention to the date, this event happens to fall on the centennial of the original conference.
I was disappointed when Ad Astra, Ed McDaniel’s first megagame, was cancelled, but it did free me up to attend this game instead. I first went to Washington Conference back in 2015, long before I was blogging or livestreaming.
I’m excited that I will be reprising my role from the original game, Ida Tarbell. She was a real firecracker of an investigative journalist, and I had great fun writing her headlines. I’ve definitely matured as a megagame press player since then, so I think it will be quite a different experience for me, even though it’s the same role.
By The Grace Of God, by Ed Silverstone and Pennine Megagames
Possibly one of the games I was most disappointed to miss out on the first run of. Ed first ran this back in late 2019, but I was otherwise engaged at a hen party.
Tim played the plumpire role of King Charles I, and I’m hoping to be either his wife or his mistress (both player roles).
And yes, Ed is running two games within about a month. He’s a mad man…
Megacon…
September also saw our third “MegaCon Mini”, a webinar series we started following the success of the full scale MegaCon event back in March. This session was about Player Experience and featured talks from Matty Robinson, and Clare Evans of Empire LARP.
We’re excitedly planning our MegaCon Minis for the rest of the year, as well as the big event next February. We’re always on the look out for additional megagames, seminars, playtests and more, so get in touch if you’d like to be involved.
Escape rooms
In September, I visited my last game in Leeds (well, Ossett) and my first in Leamington.
Outatime at Escapable in Ossett was everything a Back To The Future fan could possibly want.
And The Machine by Experimental Escape was a great introduction to my new town, and featured a good old psychotic AI (one of my favourite themes in gaming).
I have reviews pending on both of them, so I won’t say too much more at this time. But I am SO thrilled that I’m back doing escape rooms on a regular basis! I have a list a mile long of games I want to visit, especially since discovering there is a branch of the famous Tulleys just the far side of Warwick.
I also want to give a shout-out to Curious Correspondence Club and their amazing Puzzletempber, featuring daily codes, ciphers and puzzles.
Board games
One of my favourite things about my new house is having my board games right behind me on calls. It’s been set up for streaming, but since I’ve not done that yet in my new place, my colleagues are the main ones benefiting.
And I’ve played various games this month, at a range of more interesting locales than Tabletop Simulator.
The Dice Box – Burley Games and Heavy Monday
For a start, we took a couple of trips to our new local gaming cafe, The Dice Box. Firstly, we visited for an evening with Burley Games, and played Kamisado and Lusitania. Lusitania is a set building game set in Roman times. For Kamisado, think checkers but colourful. Kamisado was more my speed, but neither were an exact fit for my sort of game.
However, we also made it along to a Heavy Monday – a weekly event where one of the Dice Box game gurus teaches a longer and more complex game. We signed up to play Dune, and this game was right up my street – wheeler-dealing, bribery, knowledge management and alliances.
Unfortunately, the alliance between the Emperor (me) and Atreides (game guru Jack) was overwhelmed by the Fremen (Tim) and Harkonnen (Alex). I demand a rematch!
Girls That Game
I also attended another Leamington Spa geeky event – a pub board game night run by Girls That Game. It was a laid back evening with a lot of chat, and the three other women there told me lots of cool things about the area and the rest of the group.
We also played The Great Dalmuti, a card discarding game, and Ganz Schön Clever, a German dice game. I really enjoyed both games – they were pretty light mechanics wise, but very fun to play over a pint at the pub. I also won Ganz Schön Clever, meaning I felt schön clever myself! Hoping to head to another few pub nights in the coming months.
Space Alert
We had our friends Annika and Ralph come visit – one of the best things about living in Leam is being closer to them! They brought their pugs, and we went to the Royal Pug for lunch, and then we came back to ours to play Space Alert!
This was one of my favourite games from uni – it’s a coop game where you have a limited time to successfully defend your Sitting Duck class spaceship from incoming attack!
Pandemic Legacy
And we finally got back to Pandemic Legacy Season Two over Discord! We stopped playing in April (the real month, not the game month) and finally picked it back up in August. We’ve now made it to May (the game month, not the real month, boy this is confusing).
Unfortunately, things are going very not-well for us in the havens, and we have lost two games in a row for the first time! This sucks, as it means we have failed at an entire month. But on the plus side, we get more funding…?
TV and film
First up – how have we only just discovered Taskmaster! I’ve seen clips before, but we are jointly watching the current series live, and I’m also watching through the backlog. It’s fantastic! For those of you who are similarly in the dark, celebrities are charged with completing a weird and wacky selections of tasks, and scored on them. It’s hilarious, and I definitely want to have a go myself!
We were hooked on Vigil for the six-episode run: a cop drama set on a submarine. It’s no Line of Duty, but it’s got the tension and action that we love. We even managed to watch it the weekend we moved in, before we had our internet set up!
We are also watching The Bold Type – three millennial women struggle with life, love and feminism at a New York fashion magazine. The series is overly positive to the point that there often aren’t any consequences to career-ending blunders, but it’s good fun. We literally call it nonsense though – “do you fancy watching some Nonsense tonight?”.
Film-wise, the new Matrix trailer got me going back and watching the three original movies. The first one was as amazing as I remember, the second and third even worse than I remember… but I have high hopes for the new ones.
And after going to the Outatime escape room at Escapable Ossett, I couldn’t resist going back and rewatching Back To The Future. Maybe when I have a spare bit of time, I’ll watch the other two as well. Love myself a bit of timey wimey…
And speaking of which, I am so hyped for the return of Doctor Who later this month. I think it’s probably my favourite TV show ever.
Next month
October is a great month. It features both my birthday and Halloween – what’s not to love? Add the return of Doctor Who and physical megagames, and we’ve got a VERY exciting month planned.